back to article Apple Ping unfriends meanie Facebook

Ping, Apple's latest foray into social networking, won't play nice with Facebook - despite the connection appearing in Steve Jobs's on-stage demonstration and in the documentation. Facebook integration was obviously planned, and references persist in the application and documentation - some early adopters even report being …

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  1. TeeCee Gold badge
    Happy

    '...citing Facebook's "onerous terms"...'

    Other articles around today would suggest that maybe those "onerous terms" which Ping can't live with are something like: "You are not allowed to spam the f*** out of our users."

    1. Kevin 9

      Doubtful

      Since every Facebook app I have seen spams the fuck out of users... I've never once fired up Farmville, yet my feed is littered with Farmville news day in and day out.

      Much more likely is that Facebook wanted Apple to share more customer information than they were comfortable with.

      1. Alastair 7

        A solution

        "I've never once fired up Farmville, yet my feed is littered with Farmville news day in and day out."

        There's a very simple fix. Block the app. I've blocked Farmville, and my Facebook shows no sign of it ever existing.

        1. A handle is required
          Thumb Up

          Better yet

          Better yet, block all useless Facebook content: http://www.fbpurity.com/

  2. rpjs

    "Onerous terms"

    Gosh, I'm reminded of a metaphor here. Something to do with vessels for heating water for cooking or making hot drinks. If only I could remember it...

  3. aj87
    Jobs Horns

    What goes around...

    "onerous terms" in Licence Agreements? Steve Jobs must be very unfamiliar with such a thing...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Grenade

      Never...

      Steve jobs and his leigon of orks woulds never:

      - force you to sign up to every new edition of the T&C's to 'purchase' anything - even free apps - from the store

      - force you to trawl through 34 F*ING PAGES of said T&C's if viewed on an ipad. No wonder people just click through without reading. I think I wore a trench in my ipad screen, and my index finger is down to the bone.

      F* you Steve with your f*ing leigon of orks/lawyers...and f* you too, other for-profit tech orgs with your outrageous, arse-covering, rights-violating T&C's - you're just as bad.

      Pin-less grenade supositories for the lot of them.

  4. John Hawkins
    Jobs Horns

    Has Steve copyrighted the name of a Unix command?

    Will the command 'ping' now be sent a cease-and-desist letter, get sued and finally have to change its name? After all it is used to check the presence of other 'individuals' in a network.

    1. Eponymous Cowherd

      Trademark?

      Not to mention half of a popular bat-and-ball game, Chinese name, golf kit, etc.

    2. Giles Jones Gold badge

      Microsoff

      I'm sure Microsoft are more peeved, Ping is very close to Bing and Microsoft managed to kill of Lindows.

      1. Chris Hatfield
        FAIL

        When i used Bing (search engine) to look for Ping...

        ...I got a Flash site about a Golf club manufacters called 'Ping'

        As much as I love Apple, I think Ping is made of fail!

        Leo Laporte showed his Ping was saying he was a fan of lots of ganster rappers! (It's because he's teenaged son uses his iTunes account to buy music)

        Ping is lame, lame, lame. Also the iTunes 10 interface sucks out loud. They actually made it look WORSE. Jesus! Back to the drawing board, Stevie-boy.

    3. StooMonster
      Pint

      Wiff Waff

      The name 'Ping' did at least enable the Torygraph to write a story with the headline 'Ping pongs' :-)

    4. Daniel B.
      Pirate

      Subs

      I suppose that submarines will have to use another term for their active sonar thingies as well...

  5. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Meh, so what

    Ping seems pretty lame anyway. I've no interest in boring crap like Coldplay, thanks. And as an independent unsigned artist, there doesn't seem to be any way for me to allow fans to follow me on there. I'll stick with Last.fm, thanks very much.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    so, do you think...

    its a good idea to p1ss off apple?? Especially since they are creating a social network thing, maybe they will throw a couple of billion dollars at killing you off, no, i am sure you will be fine.

  7. Paul E

    Doubt facebook is worried

    As Microsoft has shown with Bing (Mmm now Ping, await the launch by someone of Ming) throwing money at these things does not mean you will overthrow the incumbent. Social network sites only work if you have a large enough fraction if people using it, yes lots of people have itunes but how many will go to the effort of duplicating their contacts with Ping just so they can discuss music?

    1. Giles Jones Gold badge

      I don't think you've used it

      It's built into iTunes, therefore anyone with an iPod can join it by clicking a button.

      There are a lot of iPod owners out there, lots of iPad and iPhone users too. So that's a lot of people with iTunes installed who can just click a button and use it.

      As we've seen with Internet Explorer, if something is there and you don't have to do much to use it that many people will. With social networking you have all the hassle of signing up.

      That said, I don't like the iTunes store navigation (which is what Ping uses), it's slow and a web version would be so much better.

      1. morphoyle

        Assume

        You can't really assume that all ipod owners use itunes. There are other programs out there that will let you put music on your ipod. I like my ipod, but itunes is total crap.

        1. Pete 6
          Thumb Down

          Also

          Every new version of iTunes seems to break something old and useful and introduce something new and garbage.

          Admittedly I itunes it for my ipod but I havent updated it in a couple of years. I got sick of hacking it every new version so it would behave in ways previous versions did.

      2. Henry Blackman

        It is a web version

        Don't you know? The iTunes Store is in fact a web site - this changed a couple of years ago when Apple switched to using WebKit for rendering.

  8. frankothemountain2
    Megaphone

    Play nice?

    Isn't the whole point of Apple to be "different" and not play along nicely with anyone else?

  9. Richard Cartledge
    Thumb Down

    Yawn!

    I really don't want to see the egotistical ramblings of Ladboy Gagger et al.

    It's sad that the Mac platform is being dumbed down for PCs and PC users.

    Apple should never have released software for windows, or allowed the iPhone and iPod to sync with a PC.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Troll

      yeah that would have been great.

      Any one who wants an i(whatever) MUST by a Mac first, that would have done their sales figures the world of good

      idiot

    2. Daniel B.
      FAIL

      Umm...

      Isn't Apple the one that started with the dumbed-down paradigm? Their design goal has always been for its OS and devices to be used by even the dumbest user. So it is in fact the Windows OS the one that has recently dumbed down everything, and not the other way.

  10. Unanimous Applause
    Linux

    Who cares...Yet another social app.

    I do not need another social network. Facebook works just fine and if Apple is ruling out the LARGEST social site on the web then I have nothing else to say...

    I can barely handle working with people who use Apple products at work so why would I want to socialize with them during my off time?

  11. jake Silver badge

    Cupertino's self-balkanization continues ...

    AAPL's quickly becoming the NORK of the computing world ...

  12. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    "Onerous terms"

    I guess Steve can't take what he likes to dish out. Laughable.

    1. Elmer Phud
      IT Angle

      Pot & Kettle

      "Jobs told All Things Digital that Facebook made unreasonable demands"

      mol ( Made oi larf!)

  13. JaitcH
    Jobs Horns

    Apples iPhans Orgy in the middle of the Bible Belt

    The verbal masturbation that will be occurring in Apples cloud warehouse, bang in the middle of the Bible Belt will likely defy anyones imagination. The similarities between Apples latest fund raising effort and the evangelical church movement is striking.

    Undoubtedly Jobs will be posting his 'treasured' snippets of Apple wisdom to keep the faithful happy.

    How many moderators will it need to keep the faithful on the straight and narrow?

    1. Chris Hatfield
      FAIL

      I like Apple, but I'm not in their silly cult

      Yes, I'm part of the Church of Jobs, except I don't hesitate to call out Dear Leader when he does stupid stuff.

      Ping & iTunes 10 are made of fail. Bring us an app written in Cocoa, for Pete's sake & how about wireless syncing.

  14. Steve X
    Jobs Horns

    "onerous terms"

    Let me guess, Facebook declined to pay Apple for the privilege of being connected to Ping?

  15. Geoff 25
    Pint

    Superb

    I thought Ping would be a useless piece of crap but now I know it won't interface with Facebook I reckon it deserves a second look.

    Time for some social networking down in O'Neill's yet?

  16. YumDogfood

    Final nail in the MySpace coffin?

    Ping strikes me as being a marketing tool for enabling (mostly) impulse purchases.

  17. Winkypop Silver badge
    Thumb Down

    What is this 'social networking' schtick...

    ...and why do I need it?

  18. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Imitate. Imitate. Imitate.

    WTF has happened to 'innovate'?

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